Has anyone gotten invited just a little while ago?
Randomly checked email and it says I'm invited. Just wanna see if this is a possible hoax.
Checked reddit forum and there's a second wave of beta testers, sweeeeet!
54 mbs for the initial download.

I expect none of this info to really be spread, although I'm sure you can find tidbits of this info if you Google. The info is based off of my own experiences, but the game could change from this beta so don't be surprised if the end game is different from what I'm describing. I won't be sharing screens since I'm not certain if the watermarks they have in the background (they're everywhere far as I can tell) can lead towards me or not. I have no desire to be banned from the game so anyone who wants to complain can go fuck off.

Game is pretty solid as long as you're a walker/runner/passenger in a car. Would never suggest this to anyone who is driving. The game tends to make my phone hot if I'm staying in one spot, but if I'm playing and walking it seems fine. It kind of eats your battery, but not as drastically as you might think. I am using all the battery saving options, but even then the game tends to disregard your phone's overall battery saving options like dimming your screen (wtfm8).

As it is, the beta is still a little buggy at times. It'll shut itself down spontaneously; although rare it will happen at the worst times i.e. trying to capture rare pokemon. If you need to switch to other apps you will need to relaunch the app, which is the fucking worst thing ever. Sometimes the game will lose connection to your internet and will act like it's trying to reconnect by giving you a loading animation, but even if you do have internet it will just give you the loading animation forever so you have to close the app outright but it hasn't happened with rare pokemon so it's a minor inconvenience.

Onto the main stuff. So you walk around and pokemon will sprout out of the gps map. Tap on the pokemon and you go into capture mode where you have to swipe upwards to throw your pokeball. FYI if a pokemon sprouts on the GPS map, but you travel far away enough from it, the game will tell you that it's too far away and you won't go into capture mode. Different sized pokemon will be at different distances so not every swipe will be the same, smaller pokemon will usually need short swipes, larger pokemon will usually need longer swipes. Regular mode the pokemon stands in the middle of the screen and camera mode makes you turn around in one spot till you find the pokemon on your screen. Camera mode makes for lulzy times since pokemon can end up on cash registers, in the mirror, etc. bad news is that it eats up your battery and honestly regular mode seems way easier for catching. A white circle will appear around majority of the pokemon's body and a yellow circle will constantly shrink until it's nothing and will reappear again beginning as large as the white circle. The aim is to throw the pokeball and land within the yellow circle. The larger the circle the better chance the pokemon will break out of the ball. If you manage to hit within a small enough yellow circle with the pokeball you'll get words like 'Great!' or 'Excellent' which means you'll have a better rate of a successful catch. At random the pokemon will either jump up or do an attack animation. Jumping will still allow you to catch the pokemon if you throw it right, their attack animation will make them invincible to pokeballs for a short amount of time. You can buy pokeballs from the shop, they're cheap as fuck for 100x pokeballs. You get money for free daily from the shop so lol who cares. There is no option to buy any other types of balls, you can obtain Great and Ultra balls from 'PokeStops' and you get one Masterball when you reach Level 5. If you're in the capture screen and go idle the Pokemon will not run away. But, if you fail to capture a pokemon after throwing a ball and hitting it, they do have a chance to run away. Pokemon will have CP levels, it seems to just be experience amount, so the higher CP level the pokemon is the harder it will be to capture and the more likely it is to run away if you fail to capture.

There are other aspects to the game, but I'm not certain if the desire is there from peeps here. It's late and I've got a puppy to take care of, but if I see people posting wanting more info I'll gladly write up more later.

Oh, also it's been announced that the full game should be released close to the end of July!

@blue let's hope they fix that crashing issue, the idea of it crashing like every single time you try to catch a rare Pokemon sounds so annoying... D: Do you know how evolution works? Is it the sort of system where you need to feed, say, 5 Charmanders into 1 Charmander to get a Charmeleon?

Also, guess I should post the E3 stream recap here in case anyone missed it ^^ From pokeprof on Tumblr:

>At first, only Kanto Pokémon available, with plans to eventually add all Pokémon

>Plans for some kind of connectivity between GO and Sun/Moon

>You can control the PokéBall when you throw it (spin, strength of the throw)

>They’re aiming for GO and GO Plus release late July

>GO Plus device will cost 34.99USD

>Trading will not be an available function at launch

>Plans for bigger events (i.e. people grouping up with each other, maybe similar to the Mewtwo group capture in the ad)

Thank god that GO Plus device is optional, there's no way I would pay that much for one if it's just for a single mobile game. I just wish that the devs did a better job making those trainer models, they're not looking too good and don't look as if they belong in a Pokemon-related game lmao

@blue let's hope they fix that crashing issue, the idea of it crashing like every single time you try to catch a rare Pokemon sounds so annoying... D: Do you know how evolution works? Is it the sort of system where you need to feed, say, 5 Charmanders into 1 Charmander to get a Charmeleon?

Thank god that GO Plus device is optional, there's no way I would pay that much for one if it's just for a single mobile game. I just wish that the devs did a better job making those trainer models, they're not looking too good and don't look as if they belong in a Pokemon-related game lmao

@Turnip Yep, evolution works exactly as you think. You get specific candies from Pokemon you catch/release. There's an extreme excess of Rattatas in my area, at this point since they give me money to spend willy-nilly I catch everything I possibly can. In order to evolve a Rattata you need somewhere in the ballpark of 15-20 candies, easy atm although I think the money thing will be the pay to win (p2w) part of the game so supply of Pokeballs may be sparse for freemium players. Honestly, if the supply of the pokemon you want to evolve is rare it's better to just wait to catch the evolved form, more rare and evolved forms become available for capture when you Level Up. Of course I picked Squirtle as my starter and I haven't come across any in my area or hatched any so it's literally stayed at noob level the entire run of my beta testing. As far as the release part that I mentioned, you can 'send' a Pokemon to Professor Oak and in doing so you'll gain one candy of the base form pokemon species. I don't believe 'sending' an evolved form garners you anymore candies of the base form atm.

Yeah, the Go plus is a ridiculous price wow...

I, too, was extremely surprised by the lack of customization. It's pretty much you getting to change the color of your skin, iris, clothes and design of your backpack. Not changing your person's physique, eye shape, etc. which really disappointed me, especially since your character model appears with your Pokemon you set at gyms.

For nostalgia sake I could see spending $50 on the game...I mean I paid more for my Gameboy color and Pokémon when I was a kid so this isn't much different.

Yeah you got a system and a game out of it. Even the main Pokemon series games are around the $35 price tag. So buying something for around that price tag that essentially takes you out of the game seems a little weird to me. I get they want people to be 'active' and 'enjoy their environment', but at the end of the day they want you to play the game.

There is so much that needs to be asked about what the press of the button does. If I have a Razz Berry, berry you can use once for a Pokemon to make your next Pokeball throw have a better catch rate, will the press of the button use the Razz Berry automatically even for non-rare Pokemon? Razz Berries are pretty rare to get from PokeStops so you usually only want to use it for high rarity high leveled Pokemon. Will the button automatically pitch a perfect throw? Will the button use only Pokeballs even if I have Great or Ultra balls available? There's a lot of aspects to just catching Pokemon and they want to take you away from it? Besides for most people once they get an actual capture with the Plus they'll probably go straight to their phone to see what they captured lol.

Yeah you got a system and a game out of it. Even the main Pokemon series games are around the $35 price tag. So buying something for around that price tag that essentially takes you out of the game seems a little weird to me. I get they want people to be 'active' and 'enjoy their environment', but at the end of the day they want you to play the game.

There is so much that needs to be asked about what the press of the button does. If I have a Razz Berry, berry you can use once for a Pokemon to make your next Pokeball throw have a better catch rate, will the press of the button use the Razz Berry automatically even for non-rare Pokemon? Razz Berries are pretty rare to get from PokeStops so you usually only want to use it for high rarity high leveled Pokemon. Will the button automatically pitch a perfect throw? Will the button use only Pokeballs even if I have Great or Ultra balls available? There's a lot of aspects to just catching Pokemon and they want to take you away from it? Besides for most people once they get an actual capture with the Plus they'll probably go straight to their phone to see what they captured lol.

Hohoho you silly Americans and your strong dollar. We're paying $50-$60 dollars for main series games.

Also there's more than likely going to be options for the Plus they you can set, or they'll leave it at just you throwing a ball and hoping you catch it. Not everyone is going to be looking at their phones right after using it. People out jogging/running or doing some extracurricular activity might not want, or be able, to check their phone right after hitting the button.

I've got an HTC 1, i can't say it's glitchy now like it was when I first started it just has the problem of not always successfully logging into my account the first try. It always does manage the second time you launch the game though.

But, yeah the beta is ending June 30th according to the email. They say a special message or something will appear in the beta and to screenshot it, but don't show other people lol. If it's something inconsequential then I don't see the point.

But, yeah the beta is ending June 30th according to the email. They say a special message or something will appear in the beta and to screenshot it, but don't show other people lol. If it's something inconsequential then I don't see the point.

I have Android, but Google Play is saying that "none of your devices are compatible". Might try to download the APK and see if I can load anything on my phone later, right now the APK download is down too cos "too many people have downloaded this recently" haha.

I have Android, but Google Play is saying that "none of your devices are compatible". Might try to download the APK and see if I can load anything on my phone later, right now the APK download is down too cos "too many people have downloaded this recently" haha.

I get the message that it is not available in my country. So I guess it is just Aus/NZ